My Trunk Broke!
by Piggwidgeon
Summary: NextGen has problems keeping their trunks whole. So they use their parents'. The only problem is that their parents forgot about the secret bottoms where they stored everything from their secret lives. Series of oneshots.
1. Teddy and Tonks

Disclaimer: I don't own it

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

A/N: This is a series of one-shots, so don't worry if you haven't read all of them. If this one isn't for you, then maybe another will tickle your fancy. This one is most likely the least-fluffy out of the bunch.

Summary: The Next Generation has an issue keeping their trunks in one piece, so they use their parents' old ones. The only problem is that their parents forgot about their secret compartments and the secret lives stored there.

333

1. Teddy and Tonks

"Gran!" Teddy shouted, running down the stairs. "Gran!"

He spun into the kitchen; she was usually in here, bent over the stove or something of the sort.

"Gran, where are you?"

Frantically, he dashed into the living room. Where was she?

"What's wrong, Teddy?" she asked, gently putting a hand on his shoulder.

"My trunk broke!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, come, now," she said, grabbing her grandson's hand and bringing him to his room. "How can your trunk be broken? Falk's Trunks have proudly served Hogwarts students for generations. Merlin knows no one ever has problems with his trunks."

"Well, it broke," Teddy said, pushing the door open to his room. He motioned to the dilapidated trunk, the top of it not fitting right on it and the edges coming apart.

"Oh, my," his grandmother said, quickly going near it. "It seems you have broken it."

"What are we going to do? I need to go to Hogwarts now!"

"Go to the attic; I think…I think your mother's trunk is still up there."

Without a word, Teddy threw himself up the ladder to the attic. It was hot; it always was up there. He knew exactly where the trunk was. As a smaller man, he had played up there often, looking at all the things his parents used to have. He went to the back corner, grabbed the trunk, and dragged it downstairs. It was still in good condition, despite the few stains on the interior.

His Gran waved her wand and all his contents shifted from one trunk to the other. She didn't even look at Teddy's new trunk, but told him to load it into the car. Teddy did as he was told.

"Now take care of that," she said before he went on the train. "It served your mother well for years. If you break that, I will kill you."

"Of course, Gran," he said. "I'll take good care of it."

"Now, have fun at Hogwarts and don't let a soul distract you from your duties as Prefect, understand young man?"

"Yes, Gran. I'll see you at Christmas," Teddy said, hugging her.

"I love you, Teddy."

"I love you, too. Goodbye."

He waved over his shoulder and clamored onto the train, ready for another year at Hogwarts.

3

"So you said it was your mum's?" Vicky asked, staring at the yellow-lining.

"Yep," Teddy replied, taking out the last of his books.

"So she was in Hufflepuff?"

"Evidently; I always thought she was a Gryffindor. I mean, she was an auror, wasn't she?"

"I suppose you don't have to be a Gryffindor to be an auror."

"But most of them probably are."

"You are making generalizations, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"Does this thing have a false bottom? Some of these older trunks have them, especially if they were made during the war."

"This would have been made pre-Second War."

Vicky leaned in and pulled on the edge of the bottom panel. Sure enough, it flipped open.

"Wow," Vicky said, staring at the mess of papers layered on top. "Either your mum has your organizational skills, or she's hiding something."

"I don't know. Probably both. I hear my Gran complain about it sometimes, about how I inherited her cleanliness, or lack of, and my father's self-control."

"You? Self control?" Vicky laughed.

"Shove it, you."

Teddy put the false-bottom back in.

"You aren't going to look through them?" Vicky asked.

"I…no. Not now, anyways."

3

It was a few weeks before he got around to looking through his mother's things. He wasn't sure why. A part of him really wanted to. It urged the other part to stop being so prudent and throw them around the room, to know his mum better. But the other part was resistant. She was a girl. That compartment was secret. There was a reason it was secret. In it would be secret things. Teddy wasn't sure he wanted to be privy to a teenaged girl's secrets. He especially didn't want to do it around all his other roommates. What would they say? If there was one thing he wanted to avoid, it was others ridiculing his mother, even if she was being unreasonable or silly or something else of the sort that teenaged girls tended to be.

But during the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, he had to stay in Hogwarts and make sure the first and second years didn't get out of control. He didn't know why he had to do it. Sally, the girl's prefect, was more than capable of controlling them all. After awhile sitting in the common room, he was bored, even with reading an enthralling book -- a fictional account by a fellow named Gilderoy Lockhart. It was the second edition, a picture of a vampire plastered on the front. The only thing interesting he had to do was go through his mother's trunk. Maybe he would find something in there that was amusing to him.

The papers on top were, more likely than not, to deter someone from looking further. They were all school work -- tests and quizzes and other things of the sort. All of them received top marks. With the image of his mother as a Hufflepuff who was rather clumsy, he hadn't really expected that. She was, however, an auror, so it was to be expected.

Underneath the papers was a mess: more papers, a few round sticks in plastic wrapping, a few notebooks, some potions ingredients, broken quills, a few broken pots, a half-drunk bottle of Fire Whiskey, cards reporting her marks, a few detention notes, notes passed between class, and a letter from the ministry accepting her into the auror program. It looked like the bottom of his trunk after a year at Hogwarts.

He tossed the potions ingredients and broken quills; they were of no use to anyone. Most of the notes were usual among girls. Some were of the latest gossip, others detailing the latest trip to Hogsmeade. For some reason, they made him smile. He could tell which script was his mother's easily -- it looked almost annoyingly like his -- big, sprawling, not quite neat, and she wrote in pink. Always. In every note, that was her color. He could tell which ones were from each year -- the telltale sings unmistakable. First year was marred with acclimating issues. Second year was pining after Hogsmeade. Third was the excitement of Hogsmeade. Fourth year the dance. Fifth year O.W.L.s. Sixth year boys and excessive gossip. Seventh year N.E.W.T.s. But something was amiss. After he read through the notes (he had no idea why he read all of them) he noticed there weren't that much from sixth or seventh year. He shrugged it off; maybe she just became more attentive as the N.E.W.T.s began to loom before her. One of them, though, gave hint. It was gossip again, this time there were rumors about her. He could see several of them were about it, mostly her refuting them, but whoever was on the other side didn't believe her. It never actually said what his mother was being accused of, and Teddy didn't really want to know. He put the notes aside, writing them off as childish, and looked deeper into the trunks.

There were three notebooks, all of them bound with cloth and all of them full of pink ink. Teddy put them aside, not wanting to get into them now. Lodged in one of them was probably more discussion about rumors. Teddy hated rumors as a whole. Instead, he looked at a stack of pictures bound with a piece of string. They went through her whole Hogwarts career, he could easily tell. It was odd seeing her grow up right here, in his hands. First, standing in her Hogwarts robes before going on the train, alone. Teddy's Gran had made him take one of those, too. Her hair was her natural brown, cropped short, and messy. The only way Teddy knew it was her was because the back said, "Nymphadora, '84". He had never seen her appearance sober, as Vicky put it, without any alterations. Each year, there was another picture. In second through fifth years, it was with the same three friends, all of them looking a bit older than her. In all of them, she was natural, her hair the same, and she had only changed a bit -- gotten taller and filled out just a little. She seemed to be behind her friends a bit.

By sixth year, she had settled into the look Teddy was familiar with -- the short spiky hair, her uniform slightly askew, a pair of dragonhide boots, and her face the same. Her friends changed, as well. The girls had been replaced by two boys. One of them had brown hair bleached at the front, his uniform shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. The other had longish brown hair tucked behind his ears, his shirt untucked, and tie loose. They reminded Teddy of Fred and Jim. All three of them were in Huffepuff. The two appeared again in her seventh year picture. The one with the bleached hair now had his died bright red and had physically matured a bit. The other looked scrawnier next to the other boy and had grown a little goatee and cut his hair short probably in an attempt to make him look older. His mother looked like she did in the pictures Teddy owned, but with a bit less trouble and a bit more mischief in her eyes.

When those were gone through, there were a few more -- five of them, to be exact. Each of them had a different picture of his mother, and each of them, on the back, listed the pros and cons of each look. The ones where she changed her fundamental bone structure were immediately let go under the pretense of it hurting too much. The ones where she changed her physical proportions were let go on the pretense of it misleading the boys. And that left one -- the one he knew her as. In the picture, her eyes were blue, but she had evidently dropped it as she got older.

"Teddy!" one of the boys shouted from downstairs. "Are we going to play quidditch now?"

He had told some of the second-years as recompense for not going to Hogmeade, they'd have a quidditch game.

"Yeah -- I'll be right down!" he called back.

3

"So you didn't read the journals?" Vicky asked, sitting across from him in the Great Hall.

"No," he said. "I don't want to know about a teenaged girl's life."

"You might get to know her better, you know," Vicky replied, piling potatoes on her plate. "Learn about her. You only get so much through stories. First hand accounts are a bit more powerful."

"I don't know…"

"If you get uncomfortable, turn the page."

"Hey Teddy," a second year said, sitting next to him. "We want to have a bonfire tonight; do you have any more fire starters?"

"Yeah, here," Teddy said, pulling one of the plastic-wrapped cardboard sticks from his pocket.

"What is that?" Vicky asked.

"A fire starter," Teddy said.

"No it isn't!"

"Then what it is?" Teddy crossed his arms. "We lit a huge fire with it on Saturday."

"It's a tampon, Teddy."

Teddy stared at Vicky, speechless. So that's why there were so many…

3

Teddy looked at the notebooks on his bedside table. He wished he had something else to do. He wished he didn't have to resort into prying into his mother's teenaged life. He wished he could go find Vicky and bring her to a closet somewhere. But he couldn't. He read the journals.

Most of the entries weren't anything he didn't expect; "So-and-so's so hot", "I can't believe what so-and-so did", "why don't I have a boyfriend", and so on -- usual teenaged girl drama. At the end of her fifth year, there was single entry that caught his attention. He knew what it related, too, as well. She wrote hard and fast, the writing barely legible. "Just because I haven't dated anyone doesn't mean I'm a dyke."

Teddy stared at it for a few moments. He felt anger well up in him. As far as he could tell, his mother did nothing to exact such…disapproval from her peers. If anything, she ought to be regarded more. Half of her journal entries were talking about how she did something to help someone, or try and cheer them up, or something of that sort. None of them referenced anything malicious or something like that. He turned the page, and as if nothing had happened, the names of her friends changed. She hung out with Scott and Chris instead, and they started fooling around. The entries switched from cheering people up to blowing up toilets and the like.

Nearing the end of her seventh-year, the entries started to take on a serious note, beginning to write about her career choice and how nervous, excited, and all sorts of other emotions she felt. The last thing she wrote surprised him. "I don't know of You-Know-Who is dead. I'm going to fight until I know for sure." It was the first and last mention of the Dark Lord. It took him by surprise, more than anything. He got the feeling that that was the deciding factor in her becoming an auror. Uncertainty.

He felt tears rise in his eyes as he realized something; she did fight until she knew for sure.

Why was he getting emotional about this? He shut the book and put it on his table. He didn't even know her. He flattened himself on his bed, thoughts unable to be emptied. She fought because she didn't know. Did he have a reason to fight?

"Teddy?" Vicky asked, coming into the room.

"What did I tell you about bursting in here?" Teddy asked half-heartedly. He wasn't angry.

"You know I secretly want to see you half-naked, so why would you even tease me about that?" Vicky asked, lying down next to him.

"You've said that before."

"What are you thinking about?"

"How do you know I'm thinking?"

"You have that look on your face."

Teddy sighed.

"I think I'm fighting for the future."

"What do you mean?"

"I think I'm fighting to make sure there isn't another Voldemort. I'm fighting so that no kid needs to lose his parents again, so that no wife needs to lose a husband and her daughter at once." He looked over at Vicky, her blond hair spread out on the pillow. "I'm fighting so you don't have to."

Vicky looked at him, a concerned look on her face. Her countenance melted into a smile.

"I think that's perfect," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Me too."

"Teddy?"

"Yeah?"

"Why is there a quarter bottle of Fire Whiskey on your desk?"


	2. Victoire and Fleur

Disclaimer: I don't own it

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

A/N: This is a series of one-shots, so don't worry if you haven't read all of them. If this one isn't for you, then maybe another will tickle your fancy. And I am fully aware the character of Dominique is widely accepted as a female character, but I personally prefer him as a male character in my fics.

Summary: The Next Generation has an issue keeping their trunks in one piece, so they use their parents' old ones. The only problem is that their parents forgot about their secret compartments and the secret lives stored there.

333

2. Vicky and Fleur

"Dom! I can't believe you'd do that!"

"What?"

"You broke my trunk?"

"What is zis?" their mama said, coming into Vicky's bedroom. "Victoire, what is ze matter?"

"Dom broke my trunk!" Vicky pointed an incriminating finger at her younger brother.

"I was just trying to figure out how much water one of these things held."

"You got it all soggy and wet and ruined it!"

"Come on, Vick, you and I both know that you hated your trunk."

"Everyone hates their trunks!"

"Now you can get a new one."

"How is that going to change that I hate my trunk? I hate all trunks!"

"I…you're the one that doesn't like it."

"Victoire, Dominique!" their mum shouted. "Stop zis arguing. Now, Victoire, you can use my old trunk. It's…different, but will work. Ok? Dominique, you do not put water into your sister's things. Go 'elp your fazher get my trunk from ze attic."

Dom slipped down the stairs. Vicky sat down at her desk, organizing her quills and books. She wanted to kill Dom. Of all the stupid things he's done, this was probably the worst. And the way things were going, Louis would be doing the same things before too long. Hopefully, she would be out of the house before he got too bad, though. He was only four, after all.

"Here's your trunk," her papa said, dumping it on the floor.

Vicky stood up, a pile of books in her arms, and turned around. She dropped her books. The trunk was blue. Light blue. No, baby blue. Not the brown she was expecting. And not only this, but it was decorated with lace. White lace. And had silver hinges and clasps.

"Tell me this is a joke," she said.

"No. Zis trunk has served me well. It will do ze same for you."

"It'll make me look like a freak, is what it'll do."

"Vicky, we don't have time to get you a trunk now," her papa said. "Take this now, and we'll get you a new one for Christmas."

"I don't want a trunk for Christmas!"

"Vicky, please, just load it up and put it in the car for tomorrow."

"Fine."

3

"Who's trunk is this?" Tony asked, staring at the blue trunk at the foot of Vicky's bed.

"Mine," Vicky grumbled.

"Really?" Mary asked, standing next to Tony in her contemplations.

"It isn't a Hogwarts trunk," Helen said, joining the deliberations.

"I know," Vicky said. "It was my mother's."

"A foreign trunk? Interesting," Tony said, cocking her head.

"Watcha all lookin' at?" Polly asked, leaning over Tony.

"Vicky's new trunk," Mary replied.

"It isn't new. It's ancient," Vicky corrected.

"Sweet -- retro," Polly said.

"Retro?" Bobby said, joining the group.

"Can we see inside?" Tony asked.

"It's exactly like the Hogwarts trunks," Vicky replied.

"Oh, come on. Something that pretty can't be nearly as masculine as a Hogwarts trunk," Polly said.

"It does have lace on it, though," Bobby said, a hint of disappointment in her tone.

"Just open it up," Mary said.

"Yeah, do it," Helen joined in.

"There's nothing unusual about it," Vicky said, flipping the latch and pushing the lid off.

"Wow," Helen said. "That isn't like any Hogwarts trunk I've seen."

"What are you talking about?" Vicky said, looking at what was her trunk. It had opened into a full-size wardrobe, still baby blue and white. It was so obnoxious.

"I want one," Tony said. "Can I touch it?"

"Sure," Vicky said, faintly wondering why it turned into a full-sized wardrobe.

Soon, they all had it opened up, exploring all its secret compartments. Tony had opened one of the bottom drawers and a vanity mirror and table popped out of the side.

"Why don't we have these?" Polly asked, sitting in front of the mirror.

"There's even some make-up here," Helen said.

"Because if we did, then they know we'd spend all day in our dorms," Mary said, pulling on a drawer.

"What's in there?" Tony asked.

"Some cigarettes, a bottle of Vodka, and…what is this? Condoms?" Mary pulled the items out of the drawer and tossed them on Vicky's bed.

"I didn't know you smoked, drank, or had sex," Tony said, looking suspiciously at Vicky.

"You're starting to sound like a Slytherin, with that in your trunk," Helen teased.

"Hey!" Vicky said quickly. "That stuff isn't mine. It must be left over from my mama's days in Beauxbatons."

"I didn't think your mum would have this in her trunk; she seems a whole lot like you -- obsessed with rules and bent on following them," Bobby said, turning the bottle of Vodka over in her hands.

"I am not obsessed with rules, and you really shouldn't be doing that."

"I'm just looking, geeze." Bobby put the bottle down and returned to the object of

their interest.

"And do you know what rule says you shouldn't have alcohol in the dormitories?" Polly asked.

"Eight hundred and five."

"You're not obsessed, huh?" Boby said.

"This isn't your father, is it?" Mary said, flashing a picture in front of Vicky.

"No…it isn't."

Vicky took the picture and looked at it. It was her mama and some guy in front of a tree, both of them with a glass of alcohol and a cigarette hanging out of their mouths. She had expected to find some representation of her mama's past boyfriends; her mamie had told her more than enough stories of her escapades during school despite going to an all-girl's school. But what did surprise her was that she recognized him; it was Martin. She saw him every time they went to visit France. There were other pictures of them too, some where they were more involved with each other than in other pictures, others were they looked like they were going to kill each other.

"Check this out," Tony said, pulling a light blue dance costume, full with a skirt, from the depths of the wardrobe. "Put it on, Vick."

"Absolutely not," Vicky said, putting the photos on the bed by the vodka.

"Oh, come on," Bobby said. "it looks like it's your size."

"No. I'm taller than my mama."

"No you aren't," Mary said. "You're only, like, two centimeters taller, if that. Just

put it on."

"No!"

"Why does your mum have that stuff?" Mary demanded.

"She has tights and ballet shoes, too," Tony said, dropping them on the table.

"If you won't put them on," Polly said, trying not to laugh. "I'll do it for the vodka."

"You are not taking that vodka!" Vicky shouted, grabbing it from Polly.

"Then put on the uniform," Tony said, offering the ballet regalia.

"I'll give you all detentions!"

"I don't think you will," Polly said, opening the bottle. "I mean, sure, you would, but you wouldn't want to. Wearing the skirt would be an easier way out, you know."

"Yeah, it would," Helen said, picking up the box of cigarettes.

"We wouldn't want a certain professor to find out their prefect brought in forbidden items to Hogwarts," Tony said, ripping open a condom. She stretched it out and blew it up.

"No, we'd lose our beloved prefect," Helen said, pulling one of the cigarettes from the box.

Vicky tightened her jaw and clenched her fists. They were not doing this. They could not be putting her in a corner.

"Oh, you're getting angry?" Mary said sadly.

"It's really too bad that we're used to veela in you," Bobby said, putting a hand on her back.

"Don't touch me and give me the damned costume," Vicky snapped.

The room cheered. Vicky tore off her clothes and put it on. It was tight, form fitting, and her underwear was clearly visible.

"The shoes," Tony said, handing off the pair of slippers.

Vicky put them on.

"Very nice," Mary said, her smile almost too big for her face.

"Now smile," Bobby said, snapping a picture.

"I'm going to kill all of you," Vicky said. "Now give the vodka."

Polly put it in her hand. Vicky quickly changed back, not enjoying the sequence at all, and put the costume on the bed.

"What's your mum doing with all this stuff in her trunk?" Helen asked.

"I have no idea."

"Here are more pictures," Tony said, handing them to Vicky. "A bit less amusing than the others."

Her mama was young in these, probably only eleven or twelve, and was in her uniform, beaming, her little sister clinging to her and clearly begging her not to go. There was another and the pair of them were playing a game, another and they were on vacation.

"They were close, huh?" Mary asked, gazing over Vicky's shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess they were," Vicky said.

"How often does your mum visit there?" Helen asked.

"We try and go every year. The year Lou was born, we didn't; mama wasn't up for it. Last year we didn't go, either; Lou had the chickenpox."

"I wish me and my sister were that close," Tony sighed. "We always end up fighting. Doesn't look like they fought at all. Are they still…you know…close?"

"I…I don't know."

There was another picture of them at Hogwarts by the lake, both of them soaking wet, her mama holding her younger sister in a way Vicky had never seen her do.

"I think it's time for dinner," Polly said, gazing at her watch.

"You might want to dispose of this stuff," Tony said, throwing a stuffed bear at Vicky.

"Yeah…I might want to," Vicky replied, catching the bear and looking at it.

3

Vicky piled all of her mama's old stuff in a box. She didn't want it lying around Gryffindor in case one of the girls decided they wanted to blackmail her into wearing the dance outfit to a quiditch game or something. And she definitely did not want Teddy getting wind of it. He would demand it of her; it would be in good fun, but completely embarrassing nonetheless. She tied it tight and brought it to the owlry.

A big barn owl. That's what she needed for this junk. She glanced at the picture she had kept -- the one of her mama and tatie. Maybe her mama would want it. Maybe she wouldn't. Vicky decided to keep it until Christmas; she would ask her mama then. She didn't know why she kept it. Maybe she was just touched that both sides of her family had ties here at Hogwarts. Maybe she was confused by the drastic change in her mama's relationship with her sister. In the picture, they were practically crying over seeing each other. Now, they barely gave each other the necessary greetings.

It was only natural, she supposed as the barn owl flew off with the package. Relationships change. It's a part of life, wasn't it? But still…

"Hey, Vick," Teddy said, coming into the tower with a letter in his hand. He motioned for his owl -- Pumpkin -- to get off its peg and join him.

"Hey, Teddy." She leaned against the window and looked out over the grounds.

"What're you thinking about?" He sent the owl off.

"I'm just…it's nothing."

"Come on, Vick. You know you want to tell me."

"I'm wondering if our relationship is going to change," she said, her heart pounding against her chest.

"Of course it is," Teddy said, wrapping his arm around her. "I don't want to stare at you for the rest of my life; I want to do something, too."

"I don't mean like that. I mean…I mean do you think we'll end up distant? Like my mama and tatie? Will we end up barely talking to each other?"

"No, never."

"How can you be so sure?"

"We've done more together than most people," he said, gently rubbing her back. "I mean, sure, we're still young. But we've grown up together. We have memories that will never change."

"But so did they."

"Do you intend on moving to a far off country?"

"France isn't that far away."

"It really is, though," Teddy said, getting into his thoughtful mode. "I mean, sure, it's not too far away in terms of distance. There are plenty of places farther. But it's a different culture, a different government, a different language, and practically a different world."

"I don't know Ted…just look at this picture and tell me these two aren't…aren't…"

"Loving? Of course they are. But you need to remember that they're just coming out of a life-threatening situation. All of their emotions are amplified. If they did this again, you'd probably see the same thing."

"I…I don't know."

"You don't have to," Teddy said. "Because I do. This kind of stuff happens, but I'll never let it happen to us, ok?"

"I know, but…"

"Hey, do you trust me or not?"

"Of course…"

"Then don't worry about it. It'll be fine."

Vicky sighed and closed her eyes. It won't happen to them. It won't. She'll do anything to prevent it.


End file.
